If Bush has won... posted by Richard Seymour

It is looking very close, but I expect Bush will pull it off by hook or, probably, crook. There are a few recommendations I would like to make, and I offer them purely as items for consideration and not as accusations or declarations of my unique intellectual suppleness.

1) No disavowals. If he has won, and by the margin in the popular vote that the polls suggest, then it isn't just because of Kerry's lacklustre campaign. The high turnout suggests that any result is a properly representative one. America will have experienced a conservative reflux that is not reducible to the mechanics of electoralism.

2) No Nader-bashing. Even if Nader has gently swung the poll in one or two states with his sadly squeezed vote (that's going to be my favourite euphemism), there is probably good reason why many Americans couldn't trust their vote to Kerry. This is a failure on the Democrats' part, and reactive Naderophobia will signify denial.

3) No despair. Kerry would probably have given the Republicans more or less what they wanted in the absence of effective protest. Bush showed great ineptitude in his first term, which is always the easiest term for any President. The left that got so electorally organised around Kerry ought to be able to get its shit together for a sustained campaign to curb Bush's ability to act. Support for the war is still low, and will in all likelihood decline.

Onward.